Lost object locating systems are known in the art and are useful for helping a user to locate the position of lost objects such as a TV remote, a set of car keys, a piece of jewelry, or the likes. Typical object locating systems of the prior art generally include a hand-held transmitter unit, and a receiver unit. The hand-held transmitter unit is generally represented by a device that includes a housing, a battery operated radio-frequency (RF) transmitter circuit and an activation push-button. The receiver unit usually takes the form of a tag attachable to an object whose position may need to be located by the user, and generally consists of a housing, a battery-operated RF receiver circuit and a sound emitting means.
In use, when it is required to locate the position of a lost object equipped with a receiver unit, the user presses on the push-button of the transmitter unit which, in turn, generates an RF search signal. When the RF search signal is detected by the receiver unit attached to the object, the receiver unit generates an audible sound, which helps the user to locate the position of the object.
More complex object locating systems may include an elaborate base transmitter device that interacts, on an individual basis, with a plurality of receiver units attached to a corresponding number of objects that often need to be located. Some of these complex systems may also provide the user with additional information such as the direction and distance separating the transmitter and the receiver attached to a lost object. These additional information typically take the form of modulated audible sound signals emitted by, and/or written information displayed on, the base transmitter.
These object locating systems are typically used in and around the vicinity of conventional residential houses or apartments, which generally corresponds to a range of a few tens of meters between a transmitter and a receiver, and which may encompass two or three wall divisions.
While many prior art devices generally offer an object locating system for helping a user locate a lost or misplaced object, they also entail one or more of the following disadvantages: they generally include only one transmitter, which is itself a relatively small object that is itself subject to being lost or misplaced by the user; the versions of object locating systems that include mutually locatable pairs of transmitter-receiver units, generally equipped with activation push-buttons, are relatively larger than the smaller tag equipped with only an RF receiver, and are generally too large to be attached to a relatively small valuable object such as, for example, a piece of jewelry; and the more complex object locating systems, which can address and locate multiple receiver units, have a base transmitter that is generally too large and cumbersome to carry along on a daily basis.
Against this background, there exists a need for a new and improved object locating system. It is a general object of the present invention to provide a new and improved object locating system.